Jackie Kay -- Trumpet

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

When jazz trumpet star Joss Moody dies the world learns that he was really a woman, spending over 40 years with his breasts bound, in men’s clothing,.and avoiding situations where he might be discovered.

Trumpet however isn’t his story, of how he lived that way.  It is the story of those around him, particularly his widow, Millie, and his adopted son, Colman.  It is the story of how people identify, and are identified.  Joss was black, Millie white, both Scots, their son brought up in London.

 

Jackie Kay, herself a Scot of mixed parents and openly lesbian, does several things in her debut novel.  Most movingly she gives a potent, elegiacal voice to Millie.  None of the rest would work if Millie’s grieving didn’t carry the reader.  Equally she conveys the anguish and rage of Colman who feels betrayed by both his parents.  (Millie of course knew Joss’ secret.)  Kay also unsentimentally addresses aging through Millie and through Joss’ mother.

 

In Colman’s reflections on hi experiences growing up as a young black man Kay manages the delicate balance of showing both actual racism and how the insidious presence of racism leads to anticipation of racism even when it isn’t there. 

 

In another strand an unscrupulous self-absorbed journalist seeks to write an expose best seller about Joss the woman.  In one telling chapter the drummer Big Red tells her bluntly that he never suspected anything: “Women think that men spend all their time gawking at the size of each other’s pricks in the bogs.”  In one neat sentence Kay has pointed up one notorious failing of some male writers attempting to write women.

 

What Trumpet finally asserts is that Joss is his real identity.  The strength of this beautifully told tale is not its analysis of grief, race, gender, age, nationality, sexuality or love.  It is how she sensitively expresses all of these things and conveys the fundamental truth that identity is what we choose it to be, not what others seek to impose upon us.

 

(Just one thing bothered me though.  How could a trumpet player perform with his chest bound as tight as Kay suggests?)

Comments

[denelian.livejournal.com]

(Just one thing bothered me though. How could a trumpet player perform with his chest bound as tight as Kay suggests?)

i can't imagine it would be worse than a corset. and i know a couple of trumpet players who during high school did the "vitorian dinner" on full corsetry)

i did it with clarianet. it was so corseted i could barely walk. but you breathe lower for playing. it hurts, but i imagine that after a while you just sort of stop noticing it. especially if it was ONLY his breasts - all of the breathing he needed would be from lower than that.

[moondancerdrake.livejournal.com]

I bound myself pretty tight when I was doing Frank n' furter in the late 80's and I could still talk and sing...it was darn uncomfortable though, and when I unbound myself it was a feeling better then sex, let me tell ya, and that was just a couple nights a week.

[rosalux.livejournal.com]

Well, there's Billy Tipton, but he was a pianist, which doesn't require as much breath.

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

Oooh this is one of my favourite books in the whole world. :)

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

The important thing for wind instruments is the support the diaphragm gives -- which is under the chest. Yeah, you need to breathe, but the power comes from there.

MKK

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I love this book so much!

One of my very favorite parts was the childhood friend who'd had a crush on Joss when he was a little girl.

In one neat sentence Kay has pointed up one notorious failing of some male writers attempting to write women.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Can you elaborate? The only reading of that I can come up with is that since Big Red didn't suspect anything, that's implying women are no different from men. I hope this isn't what you meant, since Joss is not a woman, regardless of how his body may look.

This is a really lovely review, though. I love this book to bits and am glad to see it getting some love on this comm. :)

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

Male writers writing about women have sometimes fallen into the trap of having women admiring their breasts as aman might.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the clarification. I don't think I would have ever figured out that's what you meant.

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

Sorry, my clumsiness. It was the line about women thinking men look at each other in the toilets, rather than anything about what Big red thought about Joss per se.

[sophinisba]

One of my very favorite parts was the childhood friend who'd had a crush on Joss when he was a little girl.

I think that was my favorite part of the book (I just finished it recently and had somehow missed this review on the comm, so I'm back here now). That one paragraph that starts "May sat back in her armchair. Josie looked so handsome playing that trumpet!" is so gorgeous, really makes you feel for this older woman who's spent her whole life missing out on what she wanted and is just now realizing what it was. And then the way it ends with the journalist writing down that May was upset because of the deception really drives home how huge the gulf between these people is, how little they're understanding of each other. I also really loved the chapter about Joss's mother.

I wanted to tell you I'm so glad I saw you mention this book on your journal because I probably wouldn't have picked it up otherwise, and it's been my favorite of the books I've read so far this year. So thank you!

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Yes! The journalist was just so...argh! But I loved the friend so much. And yeah, I liked the chapter about his mother, too.

I'm really glad you liked it! :) You should definitely check out her other work. (So far I've only read Why Don't You Stop Talking, but I'm sure everything else is good, too.)